by Pavel Kornev
If I summoned Neo now to kill this green abomination, would it be considered a breach of the deal? I mean, a Dark one against a Chaosite and all that...
Arkha must have lost her patience because she jumped down into the grave, forcing me to react.
“Stay where you are!” I shouted.
She swung round and beamed. “Aha, so you can speak, thief?”
Thief? Ah, whatever.
“How about you get lost, baby,” I said. “Do you really want to guard this bunch of old bones?”
“This is the last resting place of the head of my Order!” she snapped. “You’ve desecrated his remains! Scumbag!” her fat green fingers interlaced, forming a complex shape.
Before replying, I ran to the opposite side of the grave, just in case. “What would you say about the Bronze Hand of Fury? I don’t really need it. I’m sure you could use it!”
A definite interest glinted in her eyes. She licked her fat lips. “I don’t have a price tag, thief!”
I continued circling, trying to dissuade the unwavering woman. “Hey, I’m not trying to bribe you, am I? This is a reward for completing a mission!”
“What mission are you talking about?” Arkha turned, as if in order to follow me, but her movement was precise and calculated, as if trying to preempt my attack. Her muscles tensed up; her interlaced fingers began to tremble.
Still stealthed up, I made a dash for the totem of the Silver Phoenix. Immediately she threw her locked hands up in the air.
“Burn!” she gasped.
A jet of orange flame escaped her hands, whooshing over the marble floor, until it hit the wall and billowed up, leaving black streaks of soot on the stonework. Arkha started moving from side to side, apparently intending to scorch me wherever I was. I made another dash back to the grave, intending to strike her in the back and immediately leap aside — but before I could attack her, she extinguished her flame, bent down and picked up the half-buried silver chalice!
Stupid cow!
She hissed as if in pain and flung the Moon Grail aside. A flash of silver light erupted over her head.
The spirit of the Grand Master had escaped its trap!
I couldn’t wait any longer. Covering my eyes from the dazzling light, I summoned Neo.
The lad appeared out of thin air. He had no need for portals.
Darkness seethed within his body, overflowing and enveloping him in its cocoon. Obeying a wave of his hand, it surged toward the silver statue and extinguished the silver glow, submerging the whole place into gloom.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Neo began syphoning the totem’s power, causing the ghost of the Grand Master to flicker and ripple. The ghost was about to vanish into oblivion when it changed direction and got sucked into Arkha’s body.
The flabbergasted she-shaman began to transform. The muscular curves of her exotic feminine shape started to shrink. You’d expect them to be replaced by some sort of masculine power but you’d be wrong. Her body lengthened, making her tall and skinny as a rake; her breasts shrank into her chest; her arms and legs grew long and knobbly with protruding bones; her nails thickened into predatory claws. One look at her gave you shivers: a tall, stooping, sexless creature.
Spikes poked through the skin on her back, shoulders and elbows. A glint of Chaos glistened in her eyes, as if reflecting the furious light of the totem. The problem was, the gloom-consumed silver phoenix on top of it had already stopped glowing.
All these changes had taken no more than a couple of heartbeats, so that neither I nor even Neo had the time to react.
“Renegade!” the Grand Master growled in an orcish voice. In an almost imperceptible movement, he leapt upon Neo and shoved him in the chest with both hands, sending the lad flying against the wall.
Neo rammed the wall which became covered with a net of cracks, sending bits of chipped stone everywhere. Incredibly, he stayed on his feet and even managed to hurl a blob of primordial darkness at his enemy. It hit the transformed Grand Master in the face and streaked down, eating through his skin and exposing the bones.
The Grand Master laughed. “You stupid fool! I’m out of your reach!” he leaped forward and squeezed Neo’s neck with his fingers. “I’ll suck out your life and devour your soul!”
Apparently, the orc’s flesh provided the ghost with enough protection from the powers of the Black Phoenix. Neo, however, had nothing with which to counter the furious attacks from Arkha’s metamorphed body. His face turned crimson; he tried to draw his black ritual dagger but the Grand Master easily blocked his attempt with his right hand while continuing to strangle the lad with his left.
I ran toward him and tried to sink my Rotten Tooth into his back. The dagger screeched to a halt against his ribs, barely piercing his flesh, while the Grand Master elbowed me, very nearly impaling me on the sharp spike tipping his arm.
Damage taken: 80 [102/211]
I barely managed to squirm out of harm’s way. The spike glanced off my chainmail, grazing my side. Although the damage wasn’t that great, it still knocked me off my feet, sending me tumbling ass over tit across the floor.
Neo wheezed and croaked. His movements slowed down; I even got the impression that his figure began to flicker, vanishing. Another minute of this, and it would be him leaving for the big dark void instead of the Grand Master as originally planned.
I didn’t agree with this scenario.
A piece of program code? Program code my ass!
I looked desperately around, noticed the Moon Grail still lying by the wall, jumped up and went for it. Grabbing the massive silver chalice by the stem, I darted back and gave an almighty whack to the head of Arkha’s long-suffering body.
Bang! The blow echoed around the hall, causing a fine cloud of dust to pour from the ceiling. The flash nearly blinded me. The chalice in my hands turned so hot I could barely hold it.
“Take that!” I growled, once again lowering it onto Arkha’s bleeding head.
The Grail very nearly flew from my fingers with the impact. My gloves sizzled; my hands exploded in pain. But it was worth it: Arkha collapsed to the floor, her body still possessed by the Grand Master.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t lost consciousness, so she continued dragging the struggling Neo after her. I gave her another whack with the Moon Grail, smashing her skull in and splattering pieces of caked brain, boiling-hot blood and droplets of molten silver everywhere. I was still clutching the stem but was forced to drop it too when the scorching heat of the white-hot metal became unbearable.
Arkha’s body slackened. A blinding light poured out of it, forming the figure of the ghost. But before the Grand Master could do anything, Neo woke up and buried his both hands in the ghost’s ephemeral body, injecting darkness into its glow.
“Noooo!” the ghost wailed, then fell silent.
The darkness extinguished the light and returned into Neo. The lad leaned against the wall, gasping.
“We’ve made it, Uncle John. We did it,” he said, tousling his own red hair sticky with sweat and blood.
He seemed to have grown at least another couple of years, appearing stronger and more mature. Not that I really cared at that moment. Ditto for the avalanche of system messages reporting the damage dealt, the killing of a hostile player, the death of the Grand Master of the Order of the Silver Phoenix, the new levels received and the completion of the Capture of the Citadel of the Order of the Silver Phoenix quest.
I didn’t care. I hurt like hell. The molten silver had eaten through my hands, and I still had no healing potions.
“Uncle John? Are you all right?” Neo asked, anxious.
“No, I’m not,” I croaked. “Think you can heal my burns?”
The boy shook his head, frowning, but immediately looked back up at me again,
“Rob can help you! Provided we can make it to the ford. But I still have things to do here. Uncle John... do you think you can make it on your own? You shouldn’t waste time. You know what I mean?”
&nb
sp; I did. I reached out to tousle his hair but looked at my scorched hand and reconsidered.
Still, despite the gravity of my wounds, I tried to collect all the pieces of the Silver Phoenix I could find. Although the metal had turned black in places, I was pretty sure Mr. Lloyd would know how to use it. Somehow I felt pretty sure he would.
I DON’T REMEMBER how I climbed the stairs. I could barely think straight. The pain gnawed at my hands like they were old bones thrown to starved feral dogs. Moving my feet from one stair to the next was all I was capable of at the moment.
Left. Right. Left. Right. Step after laborious step.
By the time I got to the top, the battle was all but over. My rather thinned-out army had forced the remaining orcs into a corner and were finishing them off without mercy. I checked the time and cussed: it had been just over an hour since the fighting had begun.
“Victor!” I shouted to the archer on the wall. “Take your men and split! Everything’s done! You can discuss the rest with Julian later!”
The half-Elf nodded and began calling out his men’s names. There was no point in me lingering by the lighthouse, either, so I hobbled away. We’d just about made it within an hour as agreed, but there was no knowing what kind of sick ideas Shadow Puppeteer might have. Personally, I’d had all this fighting supernatural beings up to here. All I wanted was make it to the ford.
NEO’S AMULET was doing its job slowly but surely, restoring my health and soothing the pain. My fingers still couldn’t move though, especially my right ones. My left hand didn’t seem to have suffered as much.
I perked up a little as I walked, and soon heard a call from the other bank,
“John!”
I peered in that direction, saw Rob standing under a tree and hobbled toward him.
“On Commander’s orders, I need to take you to the temple,” the paladin said, peeling off the heavy helmet.
“Can’t we just port there?” I asked, not thrilled with the news.
“Formally, we’re trespassing,” Rob said. “There will be problems.”
With a doomed groan, I raised my burned hands. “Think you can heal this?”
Once again he faltered. “We’re on Shadow Puppeteer’s property. You can never tell how they might react to strangers casting magic here. He doesn’t like the Dark.”
“And you don’t happen to have any healing potions on you, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Shit!” I spat as I followed him into the woods.
Trying to distract myself from the pain, I opened the logs and grinned, discovering that the completion of the quest and especially the killing of Arkha had ridden me of the “Cowardly” part in my Cutthroat moniker. The penalties to accuracy and open combat were now gone but my bonus to stealthed up attacks was still there, which was excellent news.
So was the XP received. In total, I’d gotten just over 13,000 pt., bringing me rather unexpectedly up to level 30. A new box popped up, inviting me to choose a specialization, but I didn’t want to do it on the go, so I just invested all six available skill points into Dodge.
Immediately I felt better; I could even breathe easier now that the pressure of the double-edged “gift” I’d received from the Angel of Darkness had dropped 50%.
Warning! Your current level of Dodge is insufficient to receive the status of an Apprentice of the Dance of Darkness school of combat.
Penalty: 10% Health
Only ten percent! Not twenty but ten!
I must have cackled with joy because Rob gave me a funny look. I shook my head as in, please don’t mind me.
I then invested five characteristic points in Agility, another one in Perception, and gnashed my teeth with a new surge of pain in my hands.
“Aren’t we far enough yet?” I groaned. “How about you heal me already?”
Rob stopped, looked around and nodded. “Now it’s good.”
He stretched out his hand. Darkness enveloped me.
Black Abyss of Oblivion: defense failed!
Unconsciousness: 3 min 59 sec…58…57…
What the hell-
01 day 15 hrs…
DARKNESS. LIGHT.
Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light.
Darkness! Light! Light! Light! Faster and faster!
Reality strobed like a disco ball gone mad.
Provided it was reality. Was it?
I struggled against something that kept me firmly in place, pinning down my hands and feet. Immediately the riot of light began to calm down. The spots that flickered before my eyes began to fade.
“Johnny, Johnny,” Rob’s voice said. “You’re just in time.”
I shook my head and blinked, trying to take in my surroundings. I was inside an old, dilapidated hut with woven walls and flat roof covered with bulrushes. Fish scales littered the mud floor.
I was tied to some stakes which were probably used to dry fishing nets. A fire burned in a small fireplace. An impressive collection of knives and hooks was laid out on the floor next to it, as well as a short rusty saw and a hammer.
This didn’t bode well. I gathered all my strength and struggled against my bonds but they were too strong, and the stakes set too deep in the ground. Whoever had dug them in knew what he was doing.
The dark paladin laughed from the doorway. “You don’t have to wind yourself up, Johnny. We’re only just starting.”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I spat as I desperately scrolled through all my available skills but found nothing I could use to free myself.
“Didn’t you recognize me?” Rob sounded offended. “Didn’t you recognize your old friend Garth? How is it possible, Johnny?” he cast a pensive look at the ceiling, then guffawed. “Don’t worry about it too much! That was the plan!”
“Garth?” I gasped. “You’re Garth?”
“The one and only, at your service!” the dark paladin made a mocking bow. “Didn’t I tell you, Johnny, that you can be terribly predictable? Well, you didn’t disappoint me. You came back into the game and met up with those shitheads... so all this waiting hasn’t been for nothing, Johnny. Not for nothing at all.”
“Are you stupid or something?” I said, unable to keep it back. “What’s your big plan? To kill me? And then what? I’ll come back and make sure that this time you’re well and truly dead — not just once but plenty of times.”
In actual fact, I had no intention of dying. I opened my PM box, ignored Arkha’s blinking message and jotted a quick appeal for help to both Isabella and Prince Julian.
My absent expression must have given my actions away because Rob sniffed. “Come on, Johnny, ask them all to come and rescue you. Plead for help. God knows you’ll need it,” he bent down and picked up an ominous-looking hook. “I’m gonna gut you like a fish and strangle you with your own intestines. Plenty of time to do that. Or I might stuff your belly with hot coals first, and then I’ll strangle you. Or how about I cut your balls off? The time until your friends arrive will feel like an eternity to you, Johnny. That’s gonna be one hell of a long death.”
“You’re sick,” I croaked, trying not to betray my fear.
An ordinary player would have laughed at his threats — but to me with my high authenticity levels torture would present a real problem. A virtual body can’t be killed very easily, so I had no hope for a quick death. I might in fact lose my marbles in the process.
“Me sick?” Rob grinned. “That’s a bit thick coming from you. I’m justice incarnate compared to you. You destroyed my level-99 paladin who was part of me! You have any idea of all the years of hard work I invested in him? Years! And what about the rest of my stuff? I used to have a mansion in Amber Square at the very center of the capital! Well, I don’t own it anymore! It’s been put under the hammer! The furniture, the lab — everything! And it’s all because of you, Johnny! You’re the one who caused it all!” he stepped toward me, blind with fury.
I managed to find enough strength to grin in his face. “So
you think my death will make you feel better? Seriously?”
“No, it won’t,” he replied with unexpected seriousness. “Not one, not many. I could have made fifty grand on that one skull! And you just had to ruin it all! You ruined everything for me!”
“I can buy the skull off you,” I said quickly. “I’ll give you good money for it. Two hundred grand? In game money, unfortunately, but it’s still nothing to sniff at.”
He drew the rusty hook through the air inches from my face. “That’s what you should have said from the start, Johnny,” he said softly. “Tell me how it works. Tell me how you summoned the bone dragon. Just tell me, and I won’t disembowel you. I’ll just kill you.”
